For the School Colours.

by Angela Brazil.

CHAPTER I

Enter Avelyn

"It's the limit!" exploded Laura.

"An atrocious shame!" agreed Janet.

"Gives me nerve shock!" mourned Ethelberga gloomily.

"You see," continued Laura, popping the tray of her box on to the floor and sitting down on her bed, so as the better to address her audience--"you see, it's been plumped upon us without any warning. Miss Thompson must have arranged it long ago, but she never let out so much as a teeny-weeny hint. If I'd known before I came back I'd have asked Father to give a term's notice and let me leave at Christmas. Crystal clear, I would."

"Rather! so would this child."

"I guess we all should."

"I call it so mean to have sprung it on us like this! I really couldn't have believed it of Miss Thompson. She's gone down miles in my estimation. I can never feel the same towards her again--_never!_ Those Hawthorners! Oh, to think of it!"

"What's the matter?" asked a fourth voice, as another girl, still in hat and coat, and carrying her travelling-bag, entered the dormitory.

"Irma! Is it you, old sport? D'you mean to say you haven't heard the news yet?"

"Only just this minute arrived, and I've flown straight upstairs. I met Hopscotch in the hall, and asked, 'Am I still in the Cowslip Room?' and she nodded 'Yes,' so I didn't wait for any more. Has anything grizzly happened? You're all looking very glum!"

"We may well look glum," said Laura tragically. "Something particularly grizzly's happened. You remember that day school at the other side of the town?"

"The Hawthorns--yes."

"Well, it's been given up."

Irma flung her hat on to her bed and her coat after it.

"That doesn't concern us," she remarked contemptuously.

"Doesn't it? Oh, no, of course--not in the least!" Laura's voice was sarcastic. "It wouldn't have been any concern of ours--only, as it happens, they've all come on here."

Irma turned round, the very picture of dismay.

"_What?_ Not _here_, surely! Great Minerva, you don't mean it! Hold me up! I feel rocky."

Laura looked at her, and shook her head in commiseration.

"Yes, that's how it took us all when we heard," she remarked. "You'd better sit down on your bed till you get the first shock over. It's enough to make a camel weep. I couldn't believe it myself for a few minutes, but it's only too true, unfortunately for us."

"The Hawthorns! Those girls whom we never spoke to--wouldn't have touched with a pair of tongs!" gasped Irma.

"You may well marvel," sympathized Janet.

"But what's Miss Thompson _thinking_ of? Why, she always looked down so on the Hawthorns! Wouldn't let us arrange matches with their teams, and kept us away from them at that bazaar as if they'd been infectious. It's been the tradition of the school to have nothing to do with them."

"Traditions have flown to the four winds. There'll be nearly fifty Hawthorners turning up by nine o'clock to-morrow morning."

"Nearly fifty! And we were only thirty-six ourselves last term! Why, the school will be swamped!"

"Exactly, and with day girls too. When there were twenty-four boarders to twelve day girls, we could have things pretty well as we liked, but if we've to hold our own against sixty or so--well!"

"It'll mean war!" finished Ethelberga, setting her mouth grimly.

"But what's possessed Miss Thompson to do such an atrocious thing?"

cried Irma in exasperation.

"_, s. d._, my child, I suppose. Miss Perry was giving up the school, and Tommiekins bought the connection. She's completely veered round in her opinions. She told Adah Gartley they were nice girls, and would soon improve immensely at Silverside. 'I hope you'll all make them welcome,'

she said to Adah."

"Welcome!" echoed Irma, Janet, and Ethelberga eloquently.

"It wouldn't have been so bad," continued Laura, "if just a few of them--say a dozen--had been coming. We could have kept ourselves to ourselves and quite ignored them. But we're being absolutely cuckooed out. Do you know that our recreation room has been commandeered for an extra cla.s.s-room?"

Howls of dismay issued from the trio now seated on Irma's bed.

"Yes, you'd hardly believe it, but it is a fact," ran on Laura with dismal volubility. "When I went to take my painting things there I found our tables and easy chairs gone, and the whole place filled up with new desks and a blackboard."

"Where are we going to sit in the evenings?" demanded Ethelberga fiercely.

"Goodness only knows! In the dining-room, I suppose."

"We evidently don't count for anything with Tommiekins now," said Janet bitterly. "The Daisy dormitory has been taken for a cla.s.s-room, and an extra bed has been put in each of the other dormitories to make up.

Didn't you notice, Irma, that there are five here now, instead of only four?"

"Why, so there are! What a hateful cram! Who's to have the fifth?"

"I asked Hopscotch, and she said, 'A new girl.' I couldn't help flying out at that, and she simply sat flat upon me and withered me. Told me to go away and mind my own business, and she was coming round to inspect the Cowslip Room in half an hour, and I'd better get on with my unpacking."

"Oh, she will! Why didn't you tell us that before?" exclaimed the others, bouncing up with considerable haste, and setting to work again to empty their boxes.

"I forgot. I can think of nothing but those wretched Hawthorners. It's made me feel weak."

"You'll feel weaker still if Hopscotch comes in and finds you with nothing unpacked!" observed Laura sagely, stowing underclothes in her middle drawer with the utmost rapidity. "I advise you to make some sort of a beginning, even if you don't put things away tidily. Fling them in anyhow, stick a blouse for a top layer, and straighten them up afterwards. Don't let her see them still inside your box."

For a few minutes the girls suspended talk for work. Laura's flaxen head vibrated between box and wardrobe. Janet arranged her dressing-table and replaited her dark pigtail. Ethelberga hung up a selection of photographs, and placed her nightdress inside its case; Irma spread her bed with her possessions, preparatory to filling her drawers, and comforted her ruffled feelings with the last pear-drop in the paper bag she had brought with her.

The dormitory was of fair size, and though the girls might grumble, contained ample s.p.a.ce for the fifth bed. It was a pretty room with a yellow wall-paper, and chintz curtains with little bunches of cowslips on them. There were pictures of cowslips also on the walls, and all the pin-cushions and hair-tidies had yellow ribbons. The window looked over the garden, and behind the belt of trees that bordered the lawn gleamed the grey waters of the estuary, where ships were stealing out from port into the dangers of the great waters. The girls prided themselves upon this view, though at the present moment they were too busy to think of it. Three years' previous experience had taught them that, when Miss Hopkins made a tour of inspection on the first afternoon of term, she meant business, and woe betide the luckless slacker who had gossiped and dawdled instead of bestowing her property in her own lawful drawers. If she had announced her intention of visiting them shortly, she might certainly be trusted to keep her word.